Chapter 12
12
EMMA
I almost want to laugh at how fairy-tale-like this whole… scene … is. Scene feels like the correct word.
Like… it can’t be real.
Who gets to pine for quite a serious length of time for The One That Got Away and then get on with their life but always have a memory and hurt in the back of their mind, and then re-meet him and have this ?
There’s no one else here. We came to an off-the-beaten-track beach and it’s literally just us and some seagulls and the whole scenery thing in the moonlight.
‘Argh.’ I trip as my foot plunges into a hole in the sand – probably caused by people digging on the beach during the day – and have a momentary sensation of falling until I’m rescued by Callum’s strong fingers and arm.
‘Okay?’ he asks. His arm’s gripping me round the waist from when he caught me. I don’t need him to hold me up now… but it’s very nice. I’m wearing a vest top above a long floaty skirt, and he’s wearing a T-shirt, and the bare skin of his arm is against the bare skin of my waist; the touch is turning my insides to jelly.
‘All good.’ My voice comes out sounding weird. I think my vocal cords might be as busy as the rest of me going OMG, Callum’s arm is round my waist and it’s staying there . As in, we are now walking along with his arm round me, so that I’m hugged against his side.
We kissed last night and we’ve spent the whole day together in a very together kind of way, but we haven’t done this.
We continue walking along for a few moments, and then I slide my arm round Callum’s waist and he moves the arm that’s round me up to my shoulders and there we are. We each have an arm round the other. Walking along in a joined-at-the-hip way. It’s gorgeous .
I can’t think. I’m scared to. In case it’s all too perfect.
The beach curves round, and a building with fairy lights strung along its outside walls and pillars comes into view. We continue to walk towards it and as we get closer, we begin to hear the hum of voices punctuated by the occasional shout of laughter.
It’s clearly a bar, and when we get within a few metres of it, Callum says, ‘Do you fancy a drink?’
‘Yes, I really do,’ I breathe. I can’t remember ever seeing a prettier bar. Ever.
There’s a teensy possibility that I’m seeing things through rose-tinted spectacles today – I loved the service station that we stopped at and I checked some online reviews and most people trash it ratings-wise, and I thought the campsite was lovely when I was looking at it with Callum but with hindsight I’m wondering whether it was in fact a tiny bit scruffy and also smelly – but honestly this bar and its location are objectively stunning.
It’s very, very busy, but in a lovely way, because everyone’s just spilling out of the bar’s terrace and onto the beach next to it.
Callum has a magic way with crowds and a whole sea of people part for us as we head towards the bar.
‘You’re like that biblical character,’ I tell him when we’ve finally made it.
‘Which one?’
‘The one who parted the biblical sea. I can never get through crowds like that.’
‘I mean, I am of course biblically amazing, but I think it might just be to do with being tall and not being averse to a bit of shoulder flexing.’
I laugh and manage not to go insanely fan-girl over him and tell him that it was actually amazing. Everything about him seems amazing today.
I opt for a pi?a colada because it’s a pi?a colada kind of evening.
Callum goes for a cold lager.
I frown. ‘Cold lager? Is that right for this bar, this beach, this evening?’
Callum stares at me. ‘I’m guessing… not?’
‘Exactly.’ I nod approvingly.
‘Okay. I don’t want to ruin your evening but also I would kill for a nice cold beer. So I’m thinking I’ll have the lager and something more…’
‘Cocktaily?’
‘Cocktaily. The exact word I was looking for.’ He orders the bar special, which they’ve called ‘Sexy on our beach’, clearly aimed firmly at English-speaking tourists.
As we carry our drinks outside, I’m suddenly horrified with myself. I got stupidly carried away there by the whole we’re-in-this-idyllic-cocktaily-location thing. This is Callum, who used to behave ridiculously on nights out. While under the influence. Which is entirely (I think) what split us up.
‘Callum, I’m so sorry. I literally just nagged you into drinking when you didn’t want to. I do not want to be one of those people who does that. I’m not one of those people. Please don’t drink the cocktail if you don’t want to.’
‘Emma. It’s two drinks over a whole evening and I won’t finish them if I don’t want to. Honestly, I know you aren’t someone who nags people to drink more than they want to and I won’t. Really.’
Two seconds later he takes a sip of the cocktail and says, ‘Oh my God, that’s disgusting .’ He holds it out to me and I take a sip and gag slightly.
‘Wow.’ I’m shaking my head. ‘It looks so pretty and I always like a punny name, but it’s so sweet and soapy.’ I gag a bit again.
‘Aftertaste just hit you?’ Callum asks, taking a big gulp of his lager. ‘Oh, that’s better.’
When I’m sure that I’m not actually going to vomit I drink some of my own cocktail.
‘This one’s very nice,’ I tell him. ‘Try some.’
He screws his face up doubtfully.
‘Trust me,’ I say.
‘That’s what people say when they’re luring people to their death.’
‘I just tasted it and it’s really good and I have not been poisoned.’
‘Fair point.’ He tastes it and then shakes his head and takes another sip of lager, fast. ‘No, no, no. You have bad taste.’
Which, for no good reason at all, because clearly it isn’t at all funny, makes us both laugh. I think maybe we’re intoxicated by each other’s company. I am, anyway. Maybe Callum’s just laughing in sympathy.
We laugh more, we talk a lot, we laugh some more, and then, after the Italian people next to us say they’re going to order some of the cocktails that Callum got and I tell them they can’t because it’s disgusting , we get talking to them.
‘Come and dance on the beach,’ one of the women asks us maybe fifteen minutes later. ‘You can’t say no – it’s my birthday.’
I look at Callum and say, ‘It would be rude not to.’
‘It wouldn’t really?’
‘Fun, though?’
He laughs. ‘Okay, true.’
‘What scares me is that I think you might have gone even if I hadn’t been here,’ he says as we follow our new friends out of the opposite side of the bar from where we arrived.
‘Mmm, maybe but maybe not. I’ve got wiser during the course of my trip.’
‘What?’ Callum’s hand shoots out and grasps my wrist. ‘Emma? Has anything bad happened to you?’
‘Noooo, not really.’ I look up at Callum and my breath catches at the murderous look on his face. He looks as though he really cares.
‘Tell me.’
‘Honestly. It was fine in the end. I met some new people and went for a drink and one of the men tried it on a little too heavy-handedly and I was fine , but if I’m honest, only because two other women spotted what was happening and helped me. But it did kind of shake me up and when I met someone a couple of weeks later who seemed quite sleazy I got a bit spooked and decided that lots of people are sleazy and I’ve been very sensible ever since.’
‘Bloody hell , Emma.’ Callum hasn’t let go of my wrist. ‘I’m so glad that I’m here with you now.’
‘Me too,’ I say simply, because it’s true. And clearly not just because of the safety thing.
We follow our new friends to where they’ve already made a fire on the beach, and soon we’re all dancing barefoot in a big group while someone sitting on a tree stump plays a violin. The music’s haunting, the flames make everything seem almost spooky, some of the people around us are starting to act a little oddly (one of the men for example has stripped down to a very skimpy pair of black trunks and is doing very strange, twisty and jerky dancing while a woman flicks some kind of dark liquid on his chest – I mean the liquid thing is strange ) and if Callum weren’t here I’d definitely be feeling a little bit spooked.
But he is. And I’m enjoying dancing with him. We aren’t touching but we’re close together and we’re watching each other the whole time and the whole spookiness adds something that makes it all feel special.
Until the birthday woman says, ‘Now it is time for my birthday cakes.’
The birthday cakes turn out to be of the magic mushroomy kind. The woman pulls me in one direction and a man pulls Callum in another and suddenly we’re surrounded by people and I can’t see Callum. I really, really, really don’t want the ‘cake’ that the very over-insistent birthday girl is practically shoving down my throat.
I full-on shriek , ‘Callum,’ just as he pops up and shoulders his way through.
‘Great evening, thank you so much,’ he tells everyone as he grabs my hand and we walk away from the group in the direction of the bar.
‘Shoes,’ I remind him and we turn back round and pick them up before setting off again.
We don’t speak until we’re some way beyond the bar back in the direction of the campsite; we just march along at an angry kind of pace. Callum’s the angry one. I’m not angry. I’m just kind of annoyed that he clearly is.
Then he suddenly stops under a palm tree and almost yells, ‘And that is why you should not be travelling alone.’
Sorry, what? The hypocrisy.
‘And that is the kind of thing you used to involve us in all the time when we were young.’
‘And I shouldn’t have done.’ He’s yelling at full capacity now. ‘It was stupid and ridiculous and dangerous.’
‘I know that . That is what I told you.’
‘Yeah, you were wise then. Now you’re stupid. Stupid . You’ve changed. In a really idiotic way.’
‘No, I have not,’ I holler. ‘I’ve always been like this. How could I have coped with being with you if I hadn’t been? I would have hated your utter madness, wouldn’t I? Like I wouldn’t have been able to cope at all with it. You just didn’t notice. I just seemed boring compared to your incredibly outrageous lifestyle. And you told me to get out there and have experiences and that is what I am doing .’
‘Not like this, you idiot,’ he shouts back.
We just stand, me with my hands on hips, him with his arms folded across his chest, glaring at each other.
And then, as suddenly as he started shouting at me, Callum takes a pace forward and as he does so he unfolds his arms and holds them out to me. I step into them and then, equally suddenly, we’re kissing.
It starts as the yelling equivalent of kissing, hard and fierce, but then it becomes something softer, still urgent and intense, but it’s a less angry kind of passion now.
Callum has a hand in my hair, tugging gently at my ponytail, and I have my arms round his neck, with one of my hands in his lovely, thick hair. His other arm’s round my waist holding me tight against him, and it’s wonderful .
We kiss and kiss and at some point we end up lying down on the beach, which at pretty much any other time would annoy me from a sand-inside-clothes perspective but which right now is just perfect .
We’re there for a long time and I think we’re both in a big haze of passion and don’t initially hear the voices that come out of the night until their owners’ feet pass really quite close to our faces.
We both freeze and now that we aren’t actually doing anything, I’m very, very aware that we both have our hands on quite intimate parts of the other and we’re literally just there as though we’re playing some kind of weird sexual musical statues.
I’m also pretty sure that we’re both going to feel a bit sandy in places we might not want to.
‘Um.’ I’m the first one to withdraw my hands, although that isn’t good either because now, owing to Callum being very large and half on top of me, I’m not sure quite what to do with them other than lie with my arms kind of splayed out to the sides.
Callum remains in sexual statue position for a couple of moments longer before clearing his throat and pulling my clothes a bit more into their usual position and then adjusting his own clothes.
He then rolls off me, sits up, pushes himself to his feet and stretches his hand down to pull me up.
He clears his throat. ‘It’s quite late. Shall we go back?’
‘Good idea,’ I say.
As we start walking, I look back and, oh my goodness , what were we thinking, we were basically right at the entrance to the beach. Another group of people are heading towards us. Wow, we could have been doing all sorts by now, very publicly.
I begin to giggle at the thought, and then Callum begins to laugh too.
The laughing’s a good thing because it’s a distraction from the what-was-that and what-are-we-going-to-do-when-we-get-back-to-the-caravan feelings that I’m starting to get and I imagine Callum might be too.
And somehow, during the laughing, our arms meet and our hands find each other and the rest of the walk back is hand in hand. My head’s full of half-formed what’s-going-to-happen-next and what-do-I- want -to-happen-next thoughts, all of which I try to ignore, because this moonlit, hand-holding walk is truly lovely. I have no idea where – if anywhere – we might go from here, but at the very least, if nothing else happens, I think I will now have a kind of closure on the what-ifs and whys that I’ve had inside me since our non-split split twelve years ago.
As we approach the campsite entrance, I see Callum’s face illuminated for a long moment by a seriously neon lamp, and I feel the most intense longing for… well a forever . With him. I don’t want to lose him again. I know I don’t know much about his life now – well, essentially nothing, I realise, when I do a quick mental catalogue of some of the topics we’ve touched on over the past couple of days – but I know him .
Obviously, beyond knowing that I want to keep on seeing him, hopefully get back together properly with him (I can’t believe I just even thought that, it seems so huge), I have no control over what actually happens owing to the whole taking-two-to-tango thing.
I do feel, though, that I have a little bit of control over what might happen this evening, because I don’t feel like Callum has that much willpower today when it comes to physical stuff with me. And I feel as though I’d very much like more – a lot more – to happen between us tonight. Because if we don’t ultimately get properly back together, I’m going to be very upset all over again, and whatever we do or don’t do tonight won’t change that. In the short term I would very, very much like to – basically – have extremely rampant sex with him as much as possible for as long as possible.
So as we walk through the campsite gates, I move a little closer to him so that our hand-holding arms are completely touching, and then I rub my thumb against his. He stops walking and looks down at me. I stand on tiptoes and kiss him right on the lips.
He doesn’t respond immediately and I go almost rigid from panic and slight horror – because we’ll be sharing a very small space for the rest of our journey and if he rejects me now that might not feel great – but then he starts to return the kiss, and very quickly the intensity of it builds again.
I push away the thought that he was considering for a little too long what he should do, because this is wonderful and I just want to go with it now, without thinking, analysing, worrying – just enjoy it.
Another group of tourists seems to be heading towards us and so I begin to pull Callum towards my caravan, because it’s slightly nearer than his.
We barely have the door closed before we’re doing stuff that no one should ever do al fresco even in the most deserted of locations, and it’s sensational .